Hop Alley (19 page)

“Is there a restaurant at the station?” asked the widowed mother as she shod her drowsy charges.

“In a manner of saying so,” the conductor said without looking her way. He had white sideburns thick as squirrels’ tails and a pair of pince-nez with only one lens. “Man that runs it’s an old army cook. I wouldn’t eat there if I valued my health.”

T
HE WIDOW DECIDED
to stay on board and feed her children from a stack of stale-looking graham crackers wrapped in waxed paper, but I was anxious for a stretch and soon found myself seated at a long counter and addressing the old cook. A good many of my fellow had descended, but only five of us sat down in the cramped dining room to eat. While I ate a pair of fried eggs that were a shade greasier than I preferred, the illshaved, slovenly cook grumbled at length about our conductor, with whom he had some sort of continuing grudge involving the cook’s sister, long deceased.

“Nothing wrong with them eggs, is there?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, eager to avoid a long discourse.

“Sure there ain’t. He runs down my food every time he passes through. I wrote a letter to the president of the railroad himself, and all I got back was a letter from a secretary telling me to go fuck myself. Pardon my French, ma’am,” he said to a large, dainty woman dressed in lavender who affected deafness and continued working on her plate of ham. “I wouldn’t let my sister Sal marry him on account of he was a Methodist, and Methodist and Baptist don’t mix.”

“You’re not Mormon?” I asked.

“No, sir. Primitive Baptist.”

“I can’t help but notice you don’t serve coffee here.”

“They won’t let me. I don’t mind, though, that’s one place where I agree with them. That and tobacco and alcohol. Nothing but badness. And I have seen things on my travels, Mister, that would make you turn away from all those things.
After the war I spent ten years in California, from Oregon on down to Mexico, and the entire state was full of such vile wickedness it would make you rebuke those intoxicants too.”

“I’ve never been, but that’s where I’m headed.”

“Beware, friend. A wicked, wicked place.”

I nodded. As I hadn’t yet chosen what part of the state to start my new life, I thought this man might be as good an oracle as any to determine where to light. “And what would you say was the worst part of the state, Mister? South or north?”

“Well, sir, you pose a difficult question in many ways, for there are pockets of blight and sin up and down the state like pustules, each bad in its own way. But I’ll tell you, I’ve never encountered a worse or baser bunch than those in San Francisco. Debauchery and vice, and all in the name of mammon. It was gold that cursed the town, sir, and the more gold they brought up from the ground, the more Satan smiled.”

I nodded and thanked him and finished my eggs and paid. I left him a whole nickel for a tip, grateful as I was for his advice, and as I boarded the train I found the idea growing on me:
William Sadlaw Photographic Gallery, San Francisco, Cal., Sittings by Appointment Only
. By Friday I’d have arrived, by Monday at the latest I’d have leased a studio and equipment, and I would be back in business.

My troubles would be over.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A
ll of the cities in this novel—Denver, Golden, Omaha, Greeley—are figments of my imagination and differ from their real-life counterpoints as my whims dictated. For a great account of Denver in this period, I wholeheartedly recommend "Hell's Belles," by Clark Secrest (University Press of Colorado). Rick Lasarow, MD, long ago consulted with me on the behaviors of certain characters. Finally, sadly, without my friend Cort McMeel's encouragement this book never would have been finished. He left us way too soon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

S
cott Phillips is the author of
The Ice Harvest, The Walkaway, Cottonwood, The Adjustment
, and
Rake
. He was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas and lived for many years in France. He now lives with his wife and daughter in St. Louis, MO.